Mitchard: Grandpa Artie put the 'F' in family

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, January 19, 2003

One of my sons often said of Artie Berger, who was his grandpa by marriage: "Grandpa Art is much more famous than you, Mom, because he invented the Pringles can."

He did. He held a patent on that famous can. And my fame, to which my son refers, is very limited and local and confined to a couple of books most people don't know about.

Artie was a respected man of business, a keen competitor at golf, a man who wasn't afraid to let his sons smack him down at basketball and laugh about it.

His business associates praised him and his wife for their ability to gather clients and make them feel important. His daughter-in-law, Beverly, praised him when, at their pre-marriage classes, she and Terry, Artie's son from his first marriage, cited Artie's marriage to my mother-in-law as one of the few truly good marriages they knew.

She was entirely correct. Artie was an old-fashioned gentleman who treated his wife like a bride after 15 years. He opened the car door for her. He brought her the morning coffee and treated her (and she is a tough cookie) like a fragile orchid.

Within weeks after I married his son, Artie had claimed my children as his own. It was not an act; he had nothing to prove. He liked them. He was a grandfather.

When, during the turbulent first year of our marriage, my husband, Chris, tried to sort out becoming a father overnight and I tried to sort out being co-captain instead of master of the universe, there was a period when I didn't talk much to my in-laws. Artie wrote me an e-mail that gave me permission to be loved again, to turn to them.

When my eldest son, who assumes everyone considers him a screw-up because he does things in backward ways, met Grandpa, he was, unlike the little girls, too old for a lap. But Artie gave him a shoulder. They talked business, computers, engineering. When Rob learned of Grandpa Artie's death, he sat down on the floor and cried both for my father, who died after Christmas two years ago, and for Artie.

We mourn Artie because to him -- as my mother-in-law, Patty, said at the service -- there were two fine words in the language: "family" and "free."

Artie traveled for business and often was able to charm a concierge into an upgraded room.

According to Patty, Artie once got them upgraded into a $1,700-a-night suite, which for him meant not four but eight shampoos, eight bottles of lotion, 10 tiny jam jars, four packets of regular coffee, four decaffeinated, and best of all, eight pairs of monogrammed house slippers.

"What," asked Mom, "will we do with these house slippers?"

"Why," Artie replied, "give them to folks for holiday gifts."

"But," my mom-in-law protested, "they're MONOGRAMMED with an 'F,' standing for the name of the hotel!"

"Why," said Artie, "that's not a problem. We'll just tell them that stands for 'family!' "

When things went wrong, Artie had one phrase. He said, "That's family." When things were splendid, he had a single phrase, "That's family."

We are left now to say this of losing him: That's family. We must pay the price of loving him.

Do you know an Artie Berger? Perhaps you do and you think he will always be there. He will not. Love him well.